Anthony Sinsay's Mussels Adobo

Do you talk to your food? Anthony Sinsay does. The executive chef at Duke's La Jolla, which opened last November, says that this conversation helps you learn where your food is in the cooking process. Sinsay was showing me how he makes his signature dish, Mussels Adobo, which I had fallen in love with at dinner a few months back. He had sautéed a sliced jalapeño, garlic, and onion--one of the best fragrances ever, of course. Then he added the ebony Prince Edward Island mussels to the pan. He stopped talking to listen.

"You'll hear the mussels purge their water," he said. "Then you know you need to add a little liquid to keep them moist."

Sinsay has been cooking most of his life. He said with smile that his mom was no cook. But his dad was. Sinsay especially loved waking up to the scents of Thanksgiving dishes his father prepared from early in the morning to ready for hordes of cousins to eat at midday. Sinsay spent hours and hours with his dad, who suffered from congestive heart failure, watching cooking shows with him--Julia Child, Martin Yan, Jeff Smith--until he passed away when Sinsay was just 11 years old.

"I remember my dad through cooking," Sinsay says with emotion. "After he died, there was no one to cook. My siblings were much older so when I got home it was my job to make dinner."

Sinsay's culinary inspiration came from his dad. But after he died, his mom began exposing him to restaurant dining. "We dined out a lot with my Mom at places like Mr. A's," he said. "By the time I was 15 I knew I wanted to go into culinary."

Sinsay attended Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena, learning the fundamentals of European cuisine. But over the years it's become important to him to infuse his dishes with his Filipino heritage. "These are flavors and techniques that come naturally to me."

It's become especially meaningful since he and his wife Elyse have had kids. "Food is a huge component of being Filipino. I want my kids to understand that there's more to life than Happy Meals. I want them to understand where they come from."

So, for instance, for their birthdays, he makes them pancit, a traditional noodle dish filled with vegetables. Like the Chinese, who introduced noodles to the Philippines, Filipinos believe in the symbolism of noodles representing long life and good health.

Now the Mussels Adobo, which Sinsay also used to make at Burlap when he ran that kitchen, is inspired by his mom. "She grew up in the southern part of the Luzon Island in the Philippines. She made this dish with chicken that would simmer in the adobo sauce. I like making it with mussels, but I had to add sugar to the adobo sauce recipe to compensate for the shortened cooking time. When you cook vinegar a long time it becomes sweet. This dish with mussels cooks so quickly I needed to add a sweetener."

This dish is based on a traditional adobo sauce--soy sauce, vinegar, and water. Sinsay quickly whips up the sauce and sets it aside while he first sautés the vegetables, then adds the mussels. He mixes in the adobo sauce and covers the pan, cooking the mussels until they open. Then, in what takes the dish to a seductive level, Sinsay adds coconut cream and butter. That's it. Oh, except for one more critical addition: grilled pan de sal, the addictive sweet white Filipino yeast bread. Just brush slices with olive oil and toast on a grill until crispy--then try not dunking them in the luscious mussels sauce. I dare you!

Mussels Adobo
From Anthony Sinsay of Duke's La Jolla
(printable recipe)
Serves 4

Adobe is the national dish of the Philippines and varies from region to region. This version is closest to the adobo I grew up with made by my mother from southern Luzon. The sauce is an acidic broth comprised of white distilled vinegar, soy sauce, and water. Cooked with onion, garlic, and jalapeño balancing sweet, umami, spicy, and salty. It's finished with coconut cream and butter to enrich the flavor and texture. The Pan de Sal is a Filipino yeast-risen dough with a slight sweet flavor, contrary to what the name suggests. Garnish the mussels with chive spears and crispy garlic chips (slice the garlic thin, blanch, then fry).

Ingredients
3 ounces adobo sauce (see below for recipe)
1/2 ounce of olive and canola oil blend
1 jalapeño, sliced in rings (include seeds if you want more heat)
1 1/2 ounces yellow onion, sliced in rings
1 whole peeled garlic clove, minced
9 1/2 ounces mussels, cleaned
1 1/2 ounces coconut milk
1/2 ounces butter
.1 ounce fresh chives, sliced into 2-inch pieces
1 loaf pan de sal, sliced
Olive oil

For adobo sauce
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup distilled vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup water

Directions
1. Make adobo sauce: Combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly until all sugar is dissolved. Set aside.
2.  Sauté the jalapeño, onion, and garlic clove in oil. Brush pan de sal slices with olive oil and grill.
3. Add the mussels and stir together.
4. Add the adobo sauce, stir together, and cover, cooking until the mussels open.
5. Remove lid and remove mussels from the heat. Stir in coconut cream and butter. Taste the sauce and add salt if necessary to balance the flavor.
6. Garnish with chives and garlic chips (optional). Serve with grilled pan de sal.

Duke's La Jolla is located at 1216 Prospect St. in La Jolla Village.


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Lumpia Made Sweet: A Taste of Turon

Next week, I'll have a story in the San Diego Union-Tribune on Filipino food. It's a rich and complex cuisine much overlooked for some reason and I hope to help urge San Diegans to turn that around. I want to give you a bit of a preview of it here, mostly because I want you to meet someone special who helped me with an addictive dish that will be featured in the story.

The person is Rosario Cruz. She's the grandmother of the very talented Evan Cruz, Arterra's executive chef and my recent and ongoing guide through Filipino cuisine. Evan, who was born in the Philippines, invited me to visit his family's little market, JNC Pinoy Food Mart, in Chula Vista recently and made sure his grandmother was there to demonstrate how to make his favorite childhood snack, turon.

Evan Cruz, grandmother Rosario Cruz, and aunt Nora Cruz, who owns the market with her husband Felix

Now the market, which is literally across the street from Southwestern College, is really less a market than a family-style cafe. Yes, you'll find a freezer packed with lumpia wrappers, frozen casava root, and beef empanadas; shelves filled with packages of noodles, bottles of vinegar and fish sauce, condiments; and some produce--but really, you want to go there for the prepared food.

Evan's Aunt Nora plied me with a spread of wonderful distinctly Filipino dishes that are made in house, introducing me to their version of pancit and lumpia, kare-kare and beef steak, crispy pork belly served with liver sauce, and taro cooked in coconut milk. There was atsara, a pickled papaya and vegetable condiment eaten like salsa with fried fish. And skewers of very tender and juicy grilled chicken.

Clockwise from upper left: Kare-kare, beef steak and onion in soy sauce, turon, longaniza (Filipino sausage), and grilled chicken skewer

Clockwise from upper left: fried pork joint, sweet rice, taro cooked in coconut milk, pancit and lumpia

Then there was turon. Okay, so what is turon? Think of it as a sweet lumpia, or spring roll. It's the kind of snack, known as merienda, you'd find in front of elementary schools that has kids flocking around the vendor.

Turon is a very simple dish--just slices of plantain or pear banana, a slice or two of jackfruit (usually the canned version), and a generous helping of sugar rolled in a lumpia wrapper that's held in place with a slurry of water and cornstarch, then fried in canola oil and tossed in caramel. The result is an irresistible sweet and crispy pastry.

At the market, the family has a large dedicated wok for making turon. At home, you can use a wok or a frying pan. I won't post the recipe here because it will be included in my UT story, but I wanted to share a video I took of Mrs. Cruz making the dish so you can see how simple it is.

From there, you can put the turon in the freezer for a day so that the sugar stabilizes when it's fried. Evan showed me how to fry them off at his kitchen at Arterra.

Fill a frying pan with canola oil and add the turon.

Let them brown on both sides and remove the rolls. Drain off most of the oil and add a couple of tablespoons of sugar to make a dry caramel. Swirl the sugar around.

Once you have the caramel bubbling, add back the turon rolls and roll them in the caramel.

Then remove them to a baking sheet lined with silpat to keep them from sticking. Let them cool a little so you don't burn your tongue.

Then enjoy!

JNC Pinoy Food Mart is located at 943 Otay Lakes Road in Chula Vista. 


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